People with causes often share facts to influence others. Sometimes the facts work, sometimes they annoy the other person, even when that person could use the fact.

I figured out why, or at least one reason.

When people feel powerless information makes them feel ashamed, frustrated, and the like. Since they feel they can’t do anything, they see the information as highlighting the problem and makes them feel bad. They’ll tend to want you to go away. They’ll perceive you as misunderstanding them and therefore as having no useful reason to share.

When they feel powerful, information motivates them. They’ll tend to seek out more information the more they want to feel motivated.

The patterns seems to apply to many areas in life—fitness, education, starting and stopping habits, and so on—and the environment in particular. What do you think? Do you see it too?

There is plenty of information on the environment free, online. People feeling powerless mostly ignore it, shut it out, or the like.

The pattern suggests a goal to make people feel powerful. Then they’ll find information on their own. People like to tell people how powerless they are to get help from others, though that strategy can backfire. I don’t like using it.